A Rival Most Vial Audiobook By R.K. Ashwick cover art

A Rival Most Vial

Potioneering for Love and Profit (The Side Quest Row Series, Book 1)

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A Rival Most Vial

By: R.K. Ashwick
Narrated by: Brendan Robert Kane
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Two potion shops, one heated rivalry…until hate bubbles over into something else.

Any adventurer worth their sword knows about Ambrose Beake. The proud, quiet half-elf sells the best, and only, potions in the city—until a handsome new shopkeeper named Eli opens another potion shop across the street, throwing Ambrose’s peace and ledgers far off balance.

Within weeks, they’re locked in a war of price tags and products—Ambrose’s expertise against Eli’s effortless charm. Toil leads to trouble, the safety gloves come off, and right as their rivalry reaches a boiling point…

The mayor commissions them to brew a potion together.

The task is as complex as it is lucrative, pushing both men to the limits of their abilities and patience. Yet as the fires burn and cauldrons bubble…they find a different sort of chemistry brewing.

©2023 R.K. Ashwick (P)2023 R.K. Ashwick Fantasy Fiction Romance
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Loved this! If you are looking for a cozy fantasy, this one is fantastic! The story, the pacing, and narration are wonderful!

Cozy Perfection!

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This was cute and cozy and so sweet. The characters were marvelous and engaging. The story was very fun and I really appreciated how the characters had time to develop their connection. Also the way cookies were used as a cure-all.

low-angst, rivals to lovers, found family

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I personally didn’t hate the narrative style although it did include odd amounts of tension or shouting that made the over all dialogue feel jarring or stilted especially for adult listeners the narration take a almost childlike approach to capturing certain moments of tension aka instead of increasing tension by slowing down or changes in pitch/volume the audiobook narration instead includes bolder or more upset sounding voices in a very childlike way besides the narration having issues with tension it felt very well adjusted to characters when the main characters come in the feel well represented on voice and I felt like they portrayed the neurodiverse traits several characters had accurately through voice along with that the style in which nonverbal text is read felt cozy providing nice contrast to tense moments over a cute story along with being very appropriate and closed door it also felt very fluffy and the pacing and plot felt very well rounded most 99.99% of dialogue well generally well executed (with the following comments please keep the purpose of the story in mind): this novel did include some cliche moments although they are relatively low I also would have loved to see the following firstly the open acknowledgement of several characters neurodiverse traits and at least a note explaining what certain characters might be neurodiverse if you write well written neurodivergent characters own it secondly more of a accurate portrayal of Ambrose’s deep seeded trauma and he seemed to pioneer his community with not the many coping techniques that are usually required to move on from deeply hurtful relationships and finding out core beliefs/experiences are false is harder to break out of I think if he had sat in it longer or at least had been suggested therapy techniques that would’ve increased the realism and relate ability and thirdly identifying how core traumas affect them overall good read if ur looking for fluffy book but definitely listen the sample for narration style and expect a fluffy clean queer BL

Good clean read

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I'm 9 min in and I cannot finish this book. The narrator is TERRIBLE. It's not human.The inflection is so difficult to understand that it is distracting. I cannot express to you enough my OUTRAGE and CONFUSION about this. JUST SPEAK LIKE A PERSON YOURE DOING TOO MUCH ITS SOO BAD.
I was so excited about this book based on TikTok recommendations, I'll have to find it in print.

HORRIBLE NARRATOR DONT BUY THIS

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This book was so cozy! Er, I mean, things exploded but somehow the explosions were sweet and I was a little worried but not too bad? Plus there multiple scenes with gay men levitating while wearing magical purple sparkling wings. XD Delightful.
Ambrose himself, a nervous recluse who worried all the time, was an adorable main character that, while slightly neurotic, was extremely relatable and cute. Eli... Eli kinda annoyed me, but OK, he has everything and still doesn’t know what his calling is. That’s fine. Especially when Ambrose is so infatuated with him. ;)
If you liked “Legends and Lattes” this might be a book for you. :)

Purple sparkly dragon wings

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I read the audiobook, and overall I felt the story was good. Not great, but definitely a decent cozy romantasy story. However, the narrator had a way of speaking where he added pauses and stress in the weirdest places. His intonation was also quite strange. Usually when listening to an audiobook, even if the narrator is a bit off-putting to start, I acclimate as the book goes on and stop noticing it. In this case, it was distracting and off-putting until the very end and took away from my enjoyment of the book.

I have never listened to this narrator before, so I don't know if it was his personal style or just a result of the direction he was given. Perhaps they thought this style lent itself to cozy fantasy, but I can't agree. I can't imagine being happy with the end result.

It's possible, the story was actually great, but my unhappiness with the narration colored my assessment. If you're looking for a cozy romantasy story, go ahead and pick this up, but don't get the audiobook.

decent story but narration for audiobook was very

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